We're going to DefCom one for an audio explosion – just beware the sonic boom

The first creative collaboration by Brooklyn's finest luxury speaker firm is an absolute blast

DeVore Fidelity DEF CON speakers shot from the front with colourful paintings behind them
(Image credit: DeVore Fidelity)
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DeVore Fidelity, the Brooklyn-based maker of luxury Hi-Fi speakers, has teamed with renowned creative Set Free Richardson to create their first collaboration: the DefCom speakers.

Priced at a mere $21,700 (about £16,530 / €18,740), they are as much art as audio products.

Fancy a Hi-Fi setup that's atomic as well as iconic? The DefCom speaker could be just the thing.

The Brooklyn-based audio firm specialises in high-end, hand-made speakers that you'll find in the homes of stars such as Jay-Z. And Set Free is a renowned creative who founded the Compound agency and who has worked with huge brands including Nike, EA Sports and ESPN.

Set Free also created the AND1 Mixtape phenomenon, which fused sports and music and went viral in the pre-social media age. Fans swapped VHS tapes rather than streaming links. Now their DefCom speakers are enjoyably old-school too.

Close up of the rear of the DeVore Fidelity DEF CON speaker showing its bass ports

(Image credit: DeVore Fidelity)

DEF CON speaker: key features and pricing

Each DefCom speaker is constructed from two complementary woods: sustainable black rosewood on the front, and lighter wood on the sides.

They're a two-way design with twin ports on the rear. These are 10 ohm speakers with sensitivity of 96dB and a listed frequency response of 26Hz to 31kHz. They are 35.5-inches tall on their stands.

I'm not quite convinced that they'll challenge traditional speaker aesthetics, not least because they look very like the DeVore Fidelity O/96 speakers that they're based on. But they're good-looking things and the lighter wood on the sides and back has an absolutely gorgeous grain.

The O/96 speakers that the DefCom is based on have attracted glowing reviews from the Hi-Fi press in the past, so the audio performance should be similar.

The DefCom speakers will be available to order from the Compound website and from DeVore Fidelity's authorised distributors. The price is $21,700 (about £16,530 / €18,740 / AU$33,190).

Carrie Marshall
Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).

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